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DETR), Now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Consultancy Report Client: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) TRENDS IN CETACEAN STRANDINGS AROUND THE UK COASTLINE, CETACEAN AND MARINE TURTLE POST-MORTEM INVESTIGATIONS 2004 (CONTRACT CRO 238) Authors: R. C. Sabin, P. D. J. Chimonides, C. J. H. Spurrier (NHM) P. D. Jepson, R. Deaville (ZSL) R. J. Reid, I. A .P. Patterson (SAC) R. Penrose (MEM) R. Law (CEFAS) November 2005 Report No. ECM 516G/05 NHM Consulting Environment: Coastal & Marine Sector Tel: +44 (0) 207 942 5636 The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Rd, London SW7 5BD, U.K. CONTENTS General introduction to the joint report 3 Abstract 4 Part A: Trends in cetacean strandings around the UK coastline for the year 2004 6 Introduction 6 Results 8 Distribution of cetacean species 11 Balaenoptera acutorostrata – minke whale 11 Balaenoptera physalus – fin whale 11 Balaenoptera species indeterminate 13 Megaptera novaeangliae – humpback whale 13 Delphinus delphis – short-beaked common dolphin 13 Delphinus delphis/Stenella coeruleoalba - common/striped dolphin species indeterminate 16 Globicephala melas – long-finned pilot whale 16 Grampus griseus – Risso’s dolphin 16 Lagenorhynchus acutus – white-sided dolphin 17 Lagenorhynchus albirostris – white beaked dolphin 17 Lagenorhynchus species indeterminate 17 Stenella coeruleoalba – striped dolphin 18 Tursiops truncatus – bottlenose dolphin 18 Unidentified dolphins 19 Phocoena phocoena – harbour porpoise 19 Physeter catodon – sperm whale 22 Hyperoodon ampullatus – northern bottlenose whale 23 Mesoplodon bidens – Sowerby’s beaked whale 24 Ziphius cavirostris – Cuvier’s beaked whale 24 Unidentified odontocetes and other cetaceans 24 Part B: UK cetacean and marine turtle post-mortem investigations for the year 2004 25 Introduction 25 Results 27 Causes of death 27 Entanglement in fishing gear (bycatch) 27 Physical trauma 27 Infectious disease mortality 28 Starvation 28 Live-stranding 29 Gas embolism 29 Tumours 29 Other causes of death 29 Investigations of relationships between environmental contaminants and health status 32 1 Toxicology data from UK stranded harbour porpoises 32 Additional collaborative research activity 32 Scientific meetings attended 34 Additional report writing 34 Student theses 34 Publications for the year 2004 35 References 36 Appendices 38 Appendix 1: Distribution maps – UK cetacean strandings, 2004 38 Appendix 2: Lengths of stranded cetacean by species, 2004 50 Appendix 3: Stranded cetacean species by region, 2000-2004 53 2 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE JOINT REPORT This report is based on research conducted under contract to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) between 1st January and 31st December 2004. The following organisations were contracted or subcontracted under these agreements: Organisation Contract no. The Natural History Museum (NHM) CRO238 Cromwell Road South Kensington London SW7 5BD Tel: 020 7942 5155 Fax: 020 7942 5572 Subcontract no. Zoological Society of London (ZSL) ZRT C S047 516 COa Regent’s Park London NW1 4RY Tel: 020 7449 6691 Fax: 020 7586 1457 Wildlife Unit ZRT C S047 516 COb SAC Veterinary Science Division (Inverness) Drummondhill Stratherrick Road Inverness IV2 4JZ Tel: 01463 243030 Fax: 01463 711103 The authors involved in the production of this report are as follows: R. C. Sabin, P. D. J. Chimonides and C. J. H. Spurrier (NHM) P. D. Jepson and R. Deaville (ZSL) R. J. Reid and I. A. P. Patterson (SAC) R. Penrose: Marine Environmental Monitoring (MEM) R. Law: Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) 3 ABSTRACT In 2004, 799 UK-stranded cetaceans were reported which is the highest number ever recorded within the UK since records began in 1913. The last five years (1999- 2004) have seen progressively increasing numbers of UK-stranded cetaceans, predominantly due to increasing winter strandings of short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) and harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in south-west England. Cetacean strandings rates in other UK regions have remained more stable. Although post-mortem examinations have shown that the increasing numbers of common dolphin and harbour porpoise strandings in SW England in recent years are mainly cetaceans incidentally caught in commercial fishing nets (bycatch), other factors such as changes in abundance and distribution of these species and increased reporting effort in south west England may also have a role in this phenomenon. There were no unusual mass mortality events or cases of morbillivirus infection in cetaceans or marine turtles during 2004. The most common UK-stranded cetacean species in 2004 was the harbour porpoise of which 472 were recorded. The most common causes of mortality of the 166 UK-stranded harbour porpoises examined at post-mortem in 2004 were entanglement in fishing gear (bycatch) (n=37), attack from bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) (n=37), pneumonias due to combinations of parasitic, bacterial and fungal infections (n=28), and starvation (n=17). An additional nine bycaught harbour porpoises were retrieved directly from fishing vessels for post-mortem examination. All cases of fatal attack from bottlenose dolphins occurred in Northeast Scotland and West Wales where porpoises share sympatric distributions with resident bottlenose dolphin populations. The annual number of harbour porpoises killed by bottlenose dolphins has increased significantly in West Wales between 1999 and 2004. As in previous years, bycatch was the most common cause of death in UK-stranded short-beaked common dolphins accounting for 32 of the 46 (70%) examined in 2004. The majority of both short-beaked common dolphin and harbour porpoise bycatches typically stranded in southwest England (Cornwall and Devon) between January and April. Investigations of potential relationships between exposure to persistent environmental pollutants and health status in UK harbour porpoises continued in 2004 in collaboration with the Sea Mammal Research Unit (University of St Andrews) and the CEFAS Burnham Laboratory, Essex. The first case-control studies demonstrated significant associations between elevated blubber polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) levels and infectious disease mortality (compared to controls that died of acute physical trauma) and this association was not confounded by a range of factors including age, sex, stranding location and two quantitative indices of nutritional status. The second study took these analyses one step further and conducted a slightly different analysis to calculate the odds ratio for increased risk of infectious disease mortality from increasing levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in blubber. These novel analyses could form the basis of future risk assessment-type analyses to predict the population level impacts of immunosuppressive pollutants in populations of known size and PCB exposure. Since the publication in 2003 of the first pathological evidence of acute and chronic gas and fat embolism in cetaceans from the UK and the Canary Islands (in 4 collaboration with the Department of Veterinary Pathology of the University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria), four new cases of cetacean gas embolism were diagnosed in 2004 in two common dolphins (one bycaught/found at sea, the other stranded in South-west England), a Sowerby’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens) stranded in Wales and a harbour porpoise that stranded in Scotland. 5 Part A TRENDS IN CETACEAN STRANDINGS AROUND THE COASTLINE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM FOR 2004 Introduction The Natural History Museum (NHM) has been recording and investigating incidents of cetacean strandings from around the coasts of the United Kingdom for more than 100 years. The work was formalised in 1913 when an agreement was created about the scientific study of cetacean strandings, between the Board of Trade and the NHM (at that time called the British Museum (Natural History)) and was endorsed by the Crown. This agreement created the rights of the NHM to the legal acquisition of Royal Fishes, i.e. the Crown allowed the Museum first refusal of all Royal Fish for the purposes of furthering their scientific study. When debated in Parliament in 1970 it was decided to retain the classifications of 'Fishes Royal' for the benefit of Science. Since 1990, the work has been funded by the Department of Environment (DoE, later DETR), now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Under the terms of the current contract with Defra, the NHM co-ordinates and investigates cetacean strandings in the United Kingdom as part of a partnership with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and the Scottish Agricultural College Veterinary Science Division (SAC), Inverness. All strandings information recorded by the NHM since 1913 has been entered onto the National Cetacean Strandings database at the Museum, allowing the rapid extraction, detailed analysis and interpretation of the data. The NHM continues to submit data from the UK Cetacean Strandings Project to the UK annual national report for ASCOBANS (Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans Of the Baltic And North Seas). Fourteen members of staff from the NHM were responsible for retrieving the carcasses of 28 cetaceans from locations around England for post-mortem analysis in 2004. Since 1995, numbers of reported cetacean strandings have continued to rise, due in part to increased recording effort and publicity for the UK Cetacean Strandings Project. The year 2004 saw the highest number of stranded cetaceans reported around the United Kingdom since records
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